


The Despicable Mr. Peepz

by IAmJustAlways (ThirtySeven)



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: #SorryNotSorry, ? - Freeform, F/M, Gay Characters, I hope, IDK I've tried to be kinda american, Inter-Species Romance, It's more like, Mild Profanity, Murder Mystery, No Beta, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, also my tagging skills really suck, also there will be, and even though they are obviously in love with all of them, because I'm doing a series of stories, but i miss heaps, but others i am going to just completely make up, but they will, death trap mazes, eventually, het relationship which holds a similar social stigma to being LGBT+, hit and miss with animal behaviour, implications that, in a different story, in this so..., inaccurate representations of how people react to being overtired, like glacial, like i am going to mention some irl animal behaviours, mild sexualish contact because of sleep, more tags to come, no really, non-american english spelling, sex is a thing that exists, tell me if so, they are not getting together in this one, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:10:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6291145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThirtySeven/pseuds/IAmJustAlways
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One particular day, perhaps a Tuesday, Mr. Peepz deviated rather spectacularly from his usual routine. He awoke like he always did, went for his morning shop, ate breakfast and went to work at exactly quarter past eight. He even got back from work early and got to sit in his favourite chair a little earlier. In fact, he sat in his favourite chair for a whole week, before his neighbours complained of the smell.<br/>-------<br/>When a meerkat is found dead in his home with a bullet wound in his head and no sign of how the killer got in and out, Chief Bogo decides to give his newest officers a reality check with a case they couldn't possibly solve. He should really have learned by now.</p><p>Or: Judy is sick of her Neighbours From Hell and pesters Nick into moving in with her. While Nick's trying to be the responsible one for once and focus on their first murder case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Despicable Mr. Peepz

**Author's Note:**

> So hi guys!
> 
> So a few things before we leap into the fray. I haven't written much fiction in a looong while so I would really appreciate it if people notice anything wrong with my writing. Also I don't have a beta and I haven't read through this because it's late and I'm freaking tired, so keep in mind that this might be edited a bit in a few hours when I wake up.
> 
> Another thing I would like to note is that this is going to be the first part in a a fairly long series of stories that I have planned out, spanning ten years in-universe. So I'm not going to get them together in this story, but I think I've made it pretty obvious that they love each other.
> 
> The stories are going to deal with heavy prejudice against them and other people in the forms of racism, sexism in the work place (bunny/fox cop) and homophobia-like inter-species relationship prejudice. I don't think this will get too dark though.
> 
> FINAL THING: I am Australian. This is obviously going to affect my writing as I use conventional English spelling rather than American. But some other things to keep in mind is that unless you're also Australian, I do come from a different culture to you, so I may accidentally make references that you don't understand or use words that aren't common in your use of English. So keep that in mind and always send me a message if you don't understand something.
> 
> Oh! And I almost forgot: I have tagged this as having mild profanities, there is literally only one word in the English language that I actually find offensive so I've only really cut out bigger swear words like f*ck, c*** and sh*t. It's just - hey australian! So I'm used to every word under the sun and don't know what you guys find actually offensive, so if you see something you can't stand let me know and I'll either change the word or up the profanity warning.
> 
> Edit: Oh and I almost forgot! In this universe only mammals have evolved. I made it this way 1) so that carnivores still had something to eat; and 2) because I noticed that they always said 'mammal' instead of animal or person so I figured only mammals have evolved. Only problem is I thought I saw a few penguins in the ice area but w/e.

Mr. Peepz had a very particular routine. In the morning, when the sun was only barely peeping through the mist of the savannah, he would take a stroll down through the quiet streets to the twenty-four hour supermarket and buy two bread rolls, two chicken sausages and a bottle of fresh milk. Then, he would take the longer route back through the city and watch as the streets became busier and busier.

When he got home, he would put the bread rolls in the oven, fry his sausages and sit back in his favourite chair to eat his meal. When he had savoured the very last bite, Mr. Peepz would get ready for work which he always left for at a quarter past eight. When he would return home from work was anybody’s guess, but some things Mr. Peepz knew he just couldn’t change. When he got home he would sit again on his favourite chair for a good while, looking out the window or reading until it was six o’ clock and time to make dinner.

One particular day, perhaps a Tuesday, Mr. Peepz deviated rather spectacularly from his usual routine. He awoke like he always did, went for his morning shop, ate breakfast and went to work at exactly quarter past eight. He even got back from work early and got to sit in his favourite chair a little earlier. In fact, he sat in his favourite chair for a whole week, before his neighbours complained of the smell.

It took the officer ten minutes to knock down the door, which was saying something as the officer was a great, hulking Wildebeest, but Mr. Peepz was just concerned with security. After the officer found Mr Peepz in the chair, he staggered back into the window behind him and threw up. After he was quite finished, he radioed the police station.

 

* * *

 

“Neighbours again?” Nick asked, placing a cup of coffee beside the prone form slumped over the desk.

The form grunted.

Nick grinned and sat at his own desk beside hers, he sipped at his own cup of coffee and debated whether or not to start on his substantial pile of overdue paperwork. He knew better than to disturb his partner when she was like this.

“Aren’t Bunny’s supposed to be more active at this time of day?” Knowing better didn’t mean it stopped him. It just made him better at dodging flying projectiles.

Eventually, Judy dragged herself up from her desk and yawned snatching the now lukewarm coffee and chugging it. “I used to be a _morning person_.” She complained, “Now I look at you and wonder how you do it. I _miss_ mornings.”

Nick smirked and glanced at her from the corner of his eye. His of course his rabbit would be the only one in the world who complained about being less chipper than usual at six in the morning rather than just complaining about being at work at six in the morning.

The pair spent the next few hours working in relative peace. Judy attacked her small pile of paperwork with the amount of enthusiasm only she could muster, getting it done within an hour. She then spent the next half hour teasing Nick about his pile of work and throwing small pieces of paper at his ears. She had ceased her onslaught only when he offered to buy her lunch.

Who bought lunch had become a sort of game between them in the months that they had worked together. They would take turns needling each other until one eventually gave up and agreed to put their wallet on the line. They even kept a tally keeping up with who was the current overall winner.

Judy was winning 187 to 89.

It was nearing ten o’clock when Chief Bogo called for their daily meeting for assignments. As usual, Judy half skipped, half hopped to the meeting room in her excitement, all weariness seemingly gone as she chatted excitedly with Dana. Nick strolled behind her, smiling lazily at his partner’s antics. Sometimes he wondered how there could be such strong emotions in such a little bunny, one minute she was half-dead, the next she was bushy tailed and starry eyed.

Hey no he was totally not checking out her tail. It was just impossible to miss.

The meeting passed with Bogo giving his usual, uninterested speech, and as usual he waited to give Nick and Judy their assignment last.

“Since you’ve both showed that you can pull miracles from under your tails, I’ve decided to give you the Peepz case. It came in about three days ago and no one can make hide nor hair of it.”

Bogo stooped down and handed Judy a fairly thick case file which she quickly opened and began studying. Not being one for the words-on-paper himself, Nick turned to Bogo.

“What’s the case?”

“Can’t you read” The chief grunted, standing to full height and crossing his burly arms. Nick almost snorted. If the guy didn’t want to stick around and explain he would have already left.

“What can I say, Chief, the sound of your voice soothes my soul.”

Bogo did snort at that and Nick smirked, eyeing Judy for a moment in the corner of his eye, happy to see she was smiling.

The buffalo finally relented. “Mr. Marvin Peepz, a meerkat from the savannah, was in his home with a bullet hole in his head, no gun in hand. What’s really messed up about it is that all the doors and windows were bolted from the inside and there was no sign of forced entry.”

Nick grinned, “Finally! Something interesting.”

This got Judy to look up from the case file with an affectionate groan. “We just busted a drug smuggling ring a week ago. Not the most boring day at work.”

“Yeah but that was a whole _week_ ago, Carrot Cake, we’ve had nothing but traffic duty and paperwork since then.”

“Interesting or not,” Bogo cut in gruffly, “this is your first try at murder and it’s a trial basis only, if you can’t get any further in the case in a week then I’m transferring the case to a more experienced team.” He said, before making his leave.

Nick stared after him for a moment nonplussed, “Gee that guy really has a thing for arbitrary deadlines doesn’t he?”

“At least he’s giving us a chance, only eight months in and already we have our own _homicide_ case, Nick.” He looked down to see Judy wide eyed and smiling at him in that sweet way that always made him feel a little warmer, like he was worth something.

Nick huffed an affectionate laugh and turned away to hop off the chair, “Only you could get excited about an impossible murder case, Lucky Foot, only you.”

 

* * *

 

The crime scene is… worse than she thought. There was no body in the ornate high backed armchair that was the center piece of the living room, but there might as well have been for all the blood that stained it. It made Judy cringe to think that they were standing in a room where a mammal had _died_.

Judy was only glad that Nick didn’t seem as affected as they picked their way through the apartment. The whole place was meticulous, the only signs of uncleanliness being the blood-soaked chair and the layer of dust that covered everything the forensic specialists hadn’t touched.

“Well they were right about everything being dead bolted,” Nick remarked, emerging from the lounge into the kitchen where Judy was studying the underside of the kitchen sink. She could see his feet stop next to her legs as she started banging on the walls.

“What are you doing?” He asked. Judy smiled, knowing the face that went with that incredulous tone well tone well.

“I,” she said, “am looking for a secret door.”

“And _why_ would a secret door be under the kitchen sink?”

“Because if I was paranoid enough to reinforce and deadbolt all my doors and windows, I would hide my secret escape in a place that would get people asking that question.”

“And why is there a secret door in the first place? It’s a third story apartment, there’s nowhere for a secret door to lead to.”

“Well there has to be something, whoever did this must have escaped somehow.”

“Maybe the killer wasn’t present.”

Judy jerked out from under the sink to look at her partner incredulously. He had that vague expression that meant he _wasn’t joking_. “The guy has a bullet in his head!” She exclaimed.

“Ah, but bullets can be shot from far away.”

Judy sighed. “If that were the case there would be broken glass.”

“Oh… yeah.” Nick slumped slightly. “Secret door then?”

“Secret door then.” Judy agreed.

Almost two hours of painfully fruitless searching later and Judy had pretty much given up. She and nick had crawled on their bellies through every inch of the apartment to no avail, they’d found the lost left sock stash behind the washing machine, viewed (and critiqued in Nick’s case) the dust bunny collection under the bed, Judy had even screamed when she came across a fake skeleton in the closet. Nick had cried her name and run into the room only to look from her furious blush to the fake skeleton and burst with helpless laughter that lasted for a good ten minutes.

Eventually Nick calmed down and moved to collapse onto the bed. “This is pointless, the forensics team searched this place for a way out for _three days_ and found nothing. Hon, I think we’re chasing our tails here.”

Judy made a sort of dejected sound, flopping down next to him. “Maybe the killer was really small and escaped without anyone’s notice.” She curled onto her side and watched her partner shake his head, keeping his green gaze fixed to the ceiling.

“I don’t think so, Flopsy,” he murmured, “they would have had to live here for a week without leaving any physical evidence, not an easy thing to do.”

Nick turned to face her and Judy felt herself groan sleepily as she was jostled. “Mmm, Nick?” she whispered.

“Mmm?”

“Don’t… don’t call me Flopsy again…”

“Yeah… that wasn’t my best.”

Judy felt like she should probably say something else , but she was simply too tired to mover her mouth. Her eyes drooped and she figured that she could close her eyes… just for a minute… so she could think…

Judy woke with a sudden gust of cold air right up her nose. She tried to sit up but she was detained by an arm and a tail wrapped around her.

“Wha’s goin’ on Jude?”

Perhaps she was a little slow on the uptake from sleep because it was only then that she realized that she and Nick were wrapped around one another in Peepz’s bed. They were facing each other with One of Nick’s arms over her and Judy’s arms between them, which would have been fine as they were really a touchy pair and had certainly slept in the same bed before. No, the problem was Nick’s tail, which was curled over her thigh and back between her legs.

Rather high between her legs.

She squeaked when said tail shifted a little. “Um, Nick? Buddy? Hehe – could you – er – move your tail?” Judy shifted a little nervously and suddenly the fox was awake, eyes wide and completely frozen staring at her. For a fraction of a second his green eyes flashed down her body to where his tail was and he visibly swallowed.

“OK, um, Carrots, could you – ah – open your legs a little?” They were both flushing furiously now, Judy just wanted to get this over with so she spread her legs enough for Nick to hastily remove his tail. They stared at each other in silence for a moment more before scrambling off the bed.

“Well,” Nick said with an obviously fake nonchalance, “that was an invigorating surprise nap. We were only asleep for half an hour and I feel much more alert than before. I should make a habit of falling asleep at crime scenes.” A thought occurred to him and he looked over to Judy who was still seated at the edge of the bed. “Why did you wake up anyway? You’ve been exhausted all day, I would have thought you would have slept for hours.”

How had she woken up? It certainly hadn’t been Nick’s tail… “Oh, yeah, there was a gust of cold air that blew up my nose…” She trailed off.

A gust of cold air? That would mean… one look at Nick and she knew he was thinking the same thing: if all the windows and doors were closed, then where had the cold air come from?

They searched around the bedroom until they eventually found it. Under one of the bed posts, a floorboard had shifted down so reveal a small, dark slit, a cold air current coming through.

Together they moved the bed and examined the area more carefully. It looked like the length of four floorboards were stuck to each other and not the floor around them making it possible to lift them up and out of the way. Under where the bed post had been was a split in the wood that kept the boards in place.

“It must have been the weight of the two of us on the bed,” Nick said, examining the splintered wood, “if we hadn’t had that nap we never would have found it, it’s quite clever.”

Judy had to agree. The trap door was fit so snugly in place that there was no discernible difference between the door and the other planks.

“So…” Judy eyed the dark hole, “last one in’s buys lunch tomorrow?” Judy jumped straight into the hole, dimly aware of her partner yelping behind her. She didn’t have far to fall; the space between the floorboards and the concrete floor was only a little bigger than her if she folded her ears back. She landed easily with her strong legs and turned just in time to see her partner crash ungracefully to the floor beside her.

“You,” Nick gasped, he scrambled to stand up only to hit his head on the floorboards and yelp in pain. “You are a reckless, sneaky, sly little bunny cop and that _absolutely didn’t count!_ ”

“Ah ah ah,” Judy teased, “Rule #12: competitions can be called at any time for a reasonable stake. Rule #11: A competition can only be called off before it is completed. Now,” she said before he could do anything more than open her mouth to respond, “What can you see around here, anywhere beyond the stream of light from the door is pitch black to me.”

Nick grumbled under his breath but took a look around anyway. Sometimes she just couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have met him, she’d never, ever met someone who fit with all of her quirks like he did. She’d never even known she could have this sort of friendship before she met him.

Judy shook herself, she needed to focus, they could very well be in a dangerous situation; she couldn’t sit around daydreaming on how awesome her best friend was. She wandered over to the edge of the light beam opposite to where Nick was looking around. She had been telling the truth before: she couldn’t see anything. Or at least nothing more than vague, twisted impressions all around them. A shiver crawled down her spine, and she faced herself not to look over to her partner. There was something about this place that just seemed… _dangerous_. Like there were things hiding in the shadows that meant her ill.

“Hey, Carrots,” Nick called from behind her, making Judy jump a little, she took a deep breath to steel herself and turned away from the darkness to talk with her partner. What didn’t help was that Nick, a red fox with self-professed ’20-20 night vision’ looked nervous himself.

“What is it?”

Nick frowned and kept his eyes sweeping into the distance. “Can you see the wires?”

So that’s what those twisted shapes were. “I can sort of see some twisted shapes that are darker than everything else.

Nick hummed, still looking at her, “Yeah that’s them. They’re everywhere though, piled up high. There’s way more of them than there should be if they’re just for electricity… I think…” He paused then and looked at her. “I think we should see if we can pick through them to get to the walls, if there’s gonna be a way out of the building, going through the inside of the walls is the most likely way to do it.”

Judy nodded, “Well, lead the way fox-eyes.”

“Aw, a sarcastic nickname, they learn so fast.” Nick wiped an invisible tear from his eye, then looked around again, “Well, the bedroom wall’s closest so we should start in that direction.”

Ten minutes later they were back to the start.

“Darn it!” Judy cried, thumping her foot. The wires made paths which twisted and turned and led off into forks and dead ends. It was a nightmare trying to find one direction and stick to it.

“Woah there, Carrots, watch the language, you’ll offend the wire’s delicate sensibilities.”

“These wires delicate sensibilities can lick under my tail.”

Nick jerked back. “Judy are you OK?”

Judy sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. Was she OK? No. She wasn’t. The weight of her near sleepless nights was a waterfall, relentlessly trying to push her through the floor. Opening her eyes, she saw his usually half-lidded, brilliant green eyes were wide with concern. She hadn’t hid it as well as she thought. “Oh, Nick,” she sighed, “I’m sorry for snapping. It’s just I’m tired and kinda frustrated.”

“Oh Jude c’mere,” he held out his arms and Judy allowed herself to slump into him for one moment, two and the pulled herself back to her feet. There was no rest for the wicked after all.

“Pop quiz,” she announced with forced joviality, “it looks like this guy was crazy paranoid and built a maze into his super-secret escape route. What do we do?”

Luck was on her side this time and Nick let the incident slide, “We could curl up into a little ball and cry for our mommies?” He offered helpfully.

Judy pretended to think about it for a moment. “We could, we could. Any other suggestions?”

Nick held up a roll of police tape.

 

* * *

 

“Mr Peepz was a maniac,” Judy moaned. A moment later her point was proven when she triggered a trip wire and only Nick’s quick reflexes stopped her from being crushed by an avalanche of wires.

“That,” Nick gasped, holding the rabbit close, “is completely accurate.”

They had discovered early on that he maze had dozens of booby traps littered throughout, ranging from mildly painful to potentially deadly. Both of them had cuts and scratches from close shaves.

Judy slumped heavily against her partner. She tried to say, “Maybe we should call it a day,” but it just came out as “mae e sho jus ca i nay.”

“C’mon, Carrots, this isn’t like you. We just need to push a little further.”

Judy just wanted to collapse but he was right. Still, she rested a moment more against his warm form.

“OK,” she said, wrenching herself away, “just a little further.”

And Nick was right, they had been walking for only a few minutes when they came across the edge of the maze and – a staircase. Staircase may have been too polite a word for the monstrosity that existed in the hole in the wall. The ‘stairs’ were rotting wooden planks, nailed haphazardly into the wall, the distance between one step and another differing widely, from a few inches apart, to what looked like a foot between two steps where one in the middle had fallen out.

There were no rails.

The pair crept to the opening and looked down, two sets of ears flattening at the sight.

“So do you want to go onto the Death Trap of Certain Doom first, or shall I?” Judy joked.

Nick swiveled to look at her seriously. “Sweetheart, you are dead on your feet, you are not going down that _thing_ –“

“But-“

Nick put a finger to her lips, “-without support. We’ll tie ourselves together with a line of rope so if you lose balance, I can catch you.”

“And what if you lose your balance?”

“Then, with the state you’re in, we both tumble to our dooms. Now I know you’ve got rope in that Super-Crime-Fighting belt of yours, cough it up, rabbit.”

Sighing in defeat, Judy pulled her small length of rope out of one of her pouches. Rule #5: While on duty, someone always carries rope.

Once securely tied together the pair very slowly and very carefully made their way down the makeshift staircase. Although they never used the ropes, there was more than one occasion where it was a close thing. But eventually they managed to safely reach the bottom. Nick took a quick look around before spotting a light switch on the wall and adding some light into the situation.

What they saw was… disappointing.

Judy had been speculating about a hidden serial killer base with animal parts strewn about, or maybe a a small space filled with stolen art. But the results was just a room with pictures. The room was fairly small with the floor and walls only bare concrete. At the end of the room opposite the entrance to the stair case was a neat desk with a thin laptop computer and what looked like a professional camera. On the other side of the computer was a small spiral notepad and pen. On the wall behind the desk there was a large corkboard with a pinned up map of Zootopia and a few dozen pictures of different mammals pinned to it.

Judy drooped. Nick verbalized his own disappointment next to her, “We spent half an hour picking through a crazy death trap – for _this_?!”

“Well,” Judy said, trying to sound cheerful as she walked forward, “We did find something new involving the case, so at least Bogo won’t kick us off in a week.”

“Heh, you and your eternal optimism, Carrots.” Nick said from behind her. “Hey check this out. I think we’ve just found our point of entry.”

Judy turned to see Nick pointing at what looked like a blacked out window in the top corner by the stairway. As she watched Nick reached up to push it open, revealing feet walking by.

“We must be in a basement,” she noted, “it’s weird but there aren’t any doors leading out of the room? When was it made?”

Nick frowned, shutting the window. “I didn’t think there was a basement in this building; they became against regulation in the Savannah almost six years ago.”

Judy thumped her foot and tried to ignore her murky mind and think. “Maybe… maybe they filled it in and… missed a bit?”

 “Yeah maybe.” Nick didn’t look convinced, “Anyway let’s check out this stuff. It looks like a work area.”

“Yeah for a spy.” Judy eyed the photographs. They were all of two male wildebeests in rather… compromising positions. Eight months ago, Judy would have blushed but life as a Zootopian cop forced one to become immune to seeing naked mammals. That and she was too bloody tired to react to anything.

Nick pulled a picture down and flipped it around. “Huh,” he said, “apparently one of these guys is called Frank Vilderson, there’s an address here. Wanna check it out?”

Judy nodded absently, she picked up the notebook and flipped through it. “There’s… a note here. I can’t make out much of it; just some dates and times and na-a-a-aaaaames.” She finished the sentence with a heaving yawn.

Suddenly there was a paw on the small of her back and Nick was steering her toward the window, grabbing the laptop on the way. “Alright, Carrots, let’s go check out Vilderson’s address, we can come back here when you’re awake.”

Judy didn’t even bother protesting as she was pushed unceremoniously out of the window. She rolled onto the grass outside, ignoring the stunned looks of passers-by. The ground had never felt so comfortable…

“Uuuup you hop, Bunny.” Nick ground out, pulling her up. “Am I gonna have to carry you?”

Judy shook herself. “I can walk.” To prove her point she sped up toward their car, which was parked conveniently closely. She made toward the driver’s side, but Nick just steered her away to the passenger side, opening the door and half lifting her in. “But Rule #9.” She protested.

Nick smiled absently, buckling her seat belt for her before responding, “You forgot #9b, dear.”

“I am not practically unconscious.” OK, the way she mumbled that with drooping eyes probably didn’t help her point any.

Nick chuckled, “I beg to differ,” he said before shutting the door.

Judy dozed while Nick drove, which was probably a testament to how tired she was considering that Nick drove like a maniac, hence Rule #9: Judy always drives the government-owned car.

The next time Judy regained partial consciousness, she was being carried somewhere by familiar smelling arms. “Nick wha-?” She mumbled.

“Go back to sleep, Sweetheart.” She felt Nick’s chest rumble when he spoke.

Blinking, Judy looked around and realized where they were. “Why are we at your ‘partment?”

“Because you need a freaking nap and I don’t trust your neighbours to be quiet.” As he spoke the elevator opened and he got in, pressing the number seven by the wall.

Vaguely, Judy recognized that she should put up some sort of protest, but for the life of her she couldn’t think of why, so she just rested her head on her partner’s shoulder and trusted him. The last thing she remembered was being placed in a warm bed and a the feeling of a familiar presence.

**Author's Note:**

> I should have the next chapter up soon! Let me know what you think in the comments.


End file.
